Replacing Ravi as interlocutor will derail talks Naga group

    Kohima, Aug 7 (PTI) Appointing a new interlocutor will
take the Naga peace talks back to zero, said the working
committee of the Naga National Political Groups (NNPG),
maintaining that Governor RN Ravi has exhibited a serious
commitment to resolving the decades-old issue.
    The working committee of the NNPG, a conglomerate of
seven organisations, said they are hopeful that with Ravi at
the helm, an acceptable and honourable political solution
could be found to resolving the issue, rejecting the recent
suggestion of Naga Hoho, an apex body of Naga tribal
organisations, to replace him.
    Having understood the genesis of the issue, Ravi as
the interlocutor redefined the dynamics, met Naga civil
society members, listened to the tribes and put pen to paper,
it said in a statement issued on Thursday.
    To suggest a new interlocutor at this time is to
rewind the political issue back to zero, it said.
    "A return to same old situation employing the same old
trick: burn Nagaland, ransack it, strangulate and heap more
misery and suffering on the Naga public in the name of
political issue," it said.
    The WC-NNPG alleged that the past interlocutors and
negotiators indulged in "innuendos and political gymnastics"
with routine hyperboles and hypothetical assumptions to
"sedate" the Naga people.
    Asserting that it believed in inclusivity and
transparency, the NNPG said that brainstorming on critical
issues, taking Naga people's view into consideration has been
a powerful ingredient in the ongoing political dialogue.
    We have negotiated at length and agreed in principle
the proposed political arrangements, entrenching distinct Naga
identity in all Naga inhabited areas. After all, it is a Naga
narrative and not of one leader, it said.
    The WC-NNPG said it believed that Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Ravi, by now,
realise that the Naga people have great hope in their future
through enduring peaceful co-existence, as reflected in the
agreed position of November 17, 2017.
    All negotiating groups agreed in principle that
dialogues had completed on October 31, 2019. There is little
reason for any entity to veer off the track, it said. PTI
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)